Move, Holy Spirit

I was just talking on the phone with a friend and in the middle of a sentence, he said something that really hit my spirit! "The Holy Spirit often moves over people in ways you can't see." Ooo, that's blog material, I'd say!

We get so frustrated with people. Linus (Peanuts comic strip) once said: "I love mankind, it's people I can't stand!" Man, have I connected with that over the years! So much, in fact, that I'm forcing myself to stop cursing myself with such rot. I really do love people, it's just that The Enemy is constantly trying to get me to think differently about God's most precious creation.

Still, they frustrate. They confound. They confuse. They make me angry (or try to). They irritate. They do a whole bunch of other things that bother me!

Hmm, come to think of it, sounds just like me. Ahem.

How I pray God will open their eyes to the changes they need to make in their lives! But you know what? He hears that prayer. The proof is in the fact that God sends his Spirit to move on them in small ways. He seeps into their consciousness little by little until, one day, you can actually see the difference! He is changing them into his own image! Me too.

Too bad it's not fast enough for us. We want it all done right now ("give me patience, Lord and give it to me right now")! Wouldn't that be nice. Well, maybe not- we can't forget about free will . . . and the fact that God chooses to work slowly in us 1) so that it lasts and 2) so that we don't "burn" in the cooking process.

I guess my job is to continue to be patient in sowing the good seed. God makes it grow in his timing. What kind of farmer would plant a seed one day, then dig it up the next day to see if it's growing?!

Oh! But one day it breaks through the surface! Then slowly it grows into a large stable plant, that Jesus tends with great care.

O Lord, keep moving in the people around me. And open my eyes to see the tiny changes you are bringing to them. Maybe you'd even let me encourage that growth?